Psalms 41

Happy is the person who gives thought to the poor and looks out for them. The LORD will rescue him when trouble comes.

1Blessed is he that considereth the poor: the LORD will deliver him in time of trouble.

NoteWhere LORD appears in capitals it stands in for the personal name of God in Hebrew, which Jewish readers did not pronounce and replaced with "the Lord" when reading aloud. The word behind "the poor" covers anyone weak, low or helpless, the sick and the powerless as much as the penniless, and the verb behind "gives thought to" means noticing someone's situation and acting sensibly on it, not merely feeling sorry for them.

2The LORD will protect him and keep him alive, and he will be counted as blessed in the land. You will not hand him over to whatever his enemies want to do to him.

2The LORD will preserve him, and keep him alive; and he shall be blessed upon the earth: and thou wilt not deliver him unto the will of his enemies.

Note"In the land" usually means the land of Israel, and to be blessed there is the ordinary Hebrew way of saying a person is counted fortunate and secure among his own people.

3The LORD will hold him up when he lies weak in bed. When he is sick, you will make him well again.

3The LORD will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing: thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness.

NoteThe second half of this verse is notoriously hard Hebrew. Word for word it says something like "you turn over all his bed in his sickness." That has been read as God restoring the sick man to health, and also, more concretely, as God doing for him what a nurse does, turning and remaking the bed of someone too weak to move himself.

4I said, "LORD, be kind to me. Heal me, because I have sinned against you."

4I said, LORD, be merciful unto me: heal my soul; for I have sinned against thee.

Note"Heal me" translates a Hebrew phrase meaning heal my nephesh, the whole living person: life, self, breath, appetite. It does not mean an inner soul as distinct from the body.

5My enemies say hateful things about me. They ask, "When will he die, and when will his name be forgotten?"

5Mine enemies speak evil of me, When shall he die, and his name perish?

NoteFor a name to be forgotten meant being wiped out of memory altogether: no descendants, no reputation, nobody left who speaks of you. It was treated as a loss on top of dying.

6When one of them comes to see me, the words he speaks are empty and false. Inside, he is storing up things to use against me. Then he goes out and spreads them around.

6And if he come to see me, he speaketh vanity: his heart gathereth iniquity to itself; when he goeth abroad, he telleth it.

NoteVisiting the sick was a social duty, so the enemy has a respectable reason to be at the bedside. What he is after is material (signs that the man is finished) to carry back out to the others.

7Everyone who hates me whispers together about me. They plan how to do me harm.

7All that hate me whisper together against me: against me do they devise my hurt.

NoteThe Hebrew verb for whispering is also the word used for muttering a charm or an incantation over someone, so the whispering may carry a hint of something worse than gossip.

8They say, "Some evil sickness has taken hold of him. Now that he is lying down, he will never get up again."

8An evil disease, say they, cleaveth fast unto him: and now that he lieth he shall rise up no more.

NoteThe phrase behind "some evil sickness" is literally "a thing of belial", a worthless or destructive thing, and the verb means poured out into him, as though a fatal substance or a curse had been emptied in. Whether the enemies are diagnosing the illness or wishing it on him, the Hebrew leaves open.

9Even my close friend, the one I trusted, the one who ate my food at my table, has turned against me.

9Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me.

NoteEating at a man's table created a bond of loyalty, and betrayal by a table companion was among the worst injuries one person could do another. "Lifted up his heel against me" is an idiom whose exact picture is uncertain (a kick, from a horse or a man, or trampling someone underfoot) but it describes a friend turning on him violently.

10But you, LORD, be kind to me. Lift me up again, so that I can pay them back.

10But thou, O LORD, be merciful unto me, and raise me up, that I may requite them.

NoteThe verb translated "pay them back" is the ordinary word for repaying a debt or settling a score. Simply getting up off the sickbed is what would put the speaker in a position to answer his accusers at all.

11This is how I know that you are pleased with me: my enemy does not get to win over me.

11By this I know that thou favourest me, because mine enemy doth not triumph over me.

12As for me, you hold me up because I have stayed honest, and you set me in front of you forever.

12And as for me, thou upholdest me in mine integrity, and settest me before thy face for ever.

Note"Honest" here translates a word meaning whole, or all of one piece, conduct in this matter with no crack in it, rather than sinlessness, since he has already admitted sin in verse 4. Being set "in front of you" is court language: kept standing in the king's presence like a trusted servant, rather than dismissed from it.

13Praise the LORD, the God of Israel, from forever in the past to forever in the future. Amen, and Amen.

13Blessed be the LORD God of Israel from everlasting, and to everlasting. Amen, and Amen.

NoteThis verse is not part of the psalm itself. The book of Psalms is arranged in five collections, and a short burst of praise was added at the end of each one; this closes the first collection, Psalms 1–41. "Amen" is a Hebrew word meaning roughly "that is firm" or "let it stand," said to agree with what has just been spoken.